For just a second, listening to his advisers, the President yearned to unleash a primal scream. Was there no crisis so terrible it couldn’t shake the agencies of the U.S. government out of their stereotyped pattern of response: the Pentagon urging us to blow the bastard to bits; State recommending we back down; the CIA trying to cover its ass the way it has been ever since Iran?
“Jack?” he said wearily to his National Security Assistant.
“I come back to what I said half an hour ago, Mr. President. The essence of this crisis is time. If we can get the Israelis to come up with some kind of concession, then maybe we can use it to get Qaddafi to lift his threat.
Or at least extend his deadline so we’ll have a better chance of finding this damn thing in New York before our time runs out.”
The President’s eyes passed over Delbert Crandell. He had no desire to read the intimation of a prophecy fulfilled that he knew he’d find on the Energy Secretary’s face. “What do you people read into this?” he asked the psychiatrists.
Tamarkin looked at the notes he had hastily jotted down while listening to Qaddafi. He was horrified by how inadequate they appeared, by how little, finally, he had to offer the President. “I think we’re dealing with an omnipotent personality here. One with a slight but by no means disabling streak of paranoia. People like that tend to have trouble handling open-ended situations. Multiple possibilities. The thing is not to give him a fulcrum on which to crystallize his actions. He’s probably counting on you to either capitulate or threaten him with destruction. In other words, to make his decision for him. If, instead, you throw a whole series of specific, peripheral problems at him he might be at a loss.”
“I’m inclined to agree with my young colleague,” Jagerman noted approvingly. “If I may, sir, I would suggest there is little to be gained by pressing him further on the why of his action. He’s quite convinced he’s right, and you’re only going to make him more intractable by arguing the point. I think you should get instead onto the how and try to distract him with a lot of low-level, semi-technical questions about how to implement his plan. You recall my reference to the ‘hamburger or chicken option’?’
The President nodded. Jagerman’s phrase sounded grotesque in the present situation, but it described a technique for handling terrorist-hostage crises that was in every secret-police manual in the world. Jagerman himself had helped formulate it. Distract the terrorists, it maintained, keep them busy dealing with an unending stream of questions and problems not related to the central point at issue. The example invariably given to demonstrate how the principle worked was the recommended response to a terrorist’s request for food: What did he want, hamburger or chicken? The leg or the wing? Rare or well done? Mustard or ketchup? On a bun? Toasted?
How about relish? Sweet or sour? Pickles? Did he take it with onions?
Distracting a terrorist with such an unceasing barrage of questions frequently helped to calm him down, to expose him to reality and, ultimately, to make him more malleable. The Dutchman added a number of refinements to the technique. For example, he always had food sent in on normal china, glasses and silverware. This, he maintained, subtly introduced an element of civility into the police-terrorist relationship.
Furthermore, he had the terrorist, where possible, wash the plates before returning them, to force him to begin responding to authority.
“If you can succeed in getting a variant of that working,” Jagerman counseled, “then you can perhaps suggest he continue with Mr. Eastman while you are talking with the Israelis.”
“We can always try,” the President replied grimly. “Get him back, Jack.”
“Mr. Qaddafi,” he began again, “there are now, as you know, fortyeight Israeli settlements in what you refer to as the occupied territories. Over ten thousand people are settled there. The logistical problems involved in moving them in the very limited time you’ve given us are staggering.”
“Mr. President.” The Libyan’s quiet, courteous tone was unchanged. “Those people set up their settlements in a few hours. You know that. They sneak in under the cover of night, and at dawn they present the world with a fait accompli. If they can go in a few hours, they can leave in twentyfour.”
“But, Mr. Qaddafi,” the President persisted, “now they have their homes, their possessions, their factories, their farms, their schools, their synagogues. You can’t expect them to walk away and leave all that in twentyfour hours.”
“I can and I do. Their property will be guarded. Once the Palestinian Arab nation is established they will be allowed to return and collect what is theirs.”
“How can we be sure that we won’t have chaos and disorder as the Israelis withdraw?”
“The people in their joy at rediscovering their homeland will preserve order.”
“Joyous they may well be, but I’m not sure that’s going to be enough to preserve order, sir. Shouldn’t we ask King Hussein to furnish Jordanian troops?”
“Certainly not. Why should that imperialistic stooge reap the glory of this?”
“How about the PLO?”
“No. They are compromising traitors. We must use the men of the Refusal Front.”
“We will need to work out arrangements very, very carefully. Know what units would be involved. Who their commanders are. Where they will come from. How they would identify themselves. How will we coordinate their movements with the Israelis? All this requires close planning and discussion.”
There was another of Tripoli’s long and unexplained silences before Qaddafi replied “You shall have it.”
“And the bomb in New York? I presume when these arrangements are made you will tell us where it is and radio instructions to your people who are guarding it to deactivate it?”
Again there was a long silence. “The bomb is set to detonate automatically at the expiration of my ultimatum. The only signal its radio is programmed to receive is a negative signal known only to me to deactivate it.”
Eastman let out a low whistle as the interpreter finished his work. “What a clever bastard! That’s his guarantee we don’t dump the missiles on him at the last moment. We have to keep him alive to save New York.”
“Either that,” Bennington answered, “or it’s a very shrewd …” He pursed his lips, thinking. “He could be lying, you know. And lying about the SCUD missiles too.” He turned abruptly to the President. “Mr. President, it would make all the difference to our planning to know if he’s lying or not.
We have a device here that we’ve developed at the Agency which could be invaluable to us if we can get him to agree to speak to you over a television linkup.”
“What is it, Tap?”
“It’s a machine that employs laser beams to scan the musculature of a man’s eyeballs at ultra-high speeds while he’s talking. It picks up certain characteristic changes in the muscle patterns that occur if a man is lying.”
The President gave Bennington an admiring smile. “You’re right. Let’s try it.”
“Mr. Qaddafi,” he said as he resumed his dialogue, “in the very complex discussions we’re going to have to have here on movements on the West Bank, it would be helpful if we could see as well as hear each other. That way we can work out our arrangements on maps and aerial photographs so that there’s no chance of error. Would you be agreeable to setting up a television link between us? We can fly in immediately the necessary equipment.”
Again there was a long pause from Tripoli. Bennington distractedly twisted a pipe cleaner in the stem of his Dunhill, silently praying that Qaddafi would agree. To his astonishment the Libyan did, with no reluctance at all.
Further, he had his own equipment immediately available in his headquarters.